[Infographic] The State of Donor Retention 2017

The folks at nonprofit management and fundraising software company Bloomerang recently surveyed 775 nonprofit organizations (mostly) in the U.S. and Canada "to see where they stand on the issue of donor retention" — and are sharing some of the key findings in a nice little infographic on their website (and below):

No real surprises here. The vast majority (99 percent) of the surveyed respondents have heard the term "donor retention" (up from 98 percent in 2014, the last time Bloomerang conducted the survey), while two-thirds (67 percent) track their donor retention rate (up from 55 percent in 2014). Maybe more interesting are the reasons nonprofits give for NOT tracking donor retention:

• don't have the tools (20 percent)
• don't know how (16 percent)
• aren't sure what they would do differently if they knew their rate (14 percent)
• no one has ever asked to see it (13 percent)
• don't care about the metric (1 percent)
• "other”

What about your organization? Is donor retention something you and your colleagues think about and track? And if not, why not? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

To learn more about the importance of donor retention and why it's a critical metric for your nonprofit, check out our Sustainable Nonprofit archive, where you'll find any number of articles on the topic — and lots of material on other topics of interest!